


The World's Most Elaborate Suicide Note

by LokiOfSassgaard



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-15
Updated: 2012-02-15
Packaged: 2018-05-28 06:23:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6318172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LokiOfSassgaard/pseuds/LokiOfSassgaard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sebastian has seen ghosts. Everyone involved with Blackwater sees ghosts. But the ghosts don't usually talk back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The World's Most Elaborate Suicide Note

The papers all called it a plot twist worthy of a Conan Doyle novella. Jim called it a game; a puzzle; fun. Sebastian called it the world's most elaborate suicide note-stroke-love letter. From his vantage point where he had his sights ostensibly trained on Dr Watson, Sebastian could see Jim and Sherlock on the roof of the hospital. He watched the two of them slowly dance around one another, their intellectual pissing contest growing more and more out of hand by the second. Sebastian wouldn't have been perched in that stairwell if things hadn't already begun to grow out of hand to begin with, but this was verging into Bad Feeling territory. The sort of Bad Feeling he'd got at the pool when Jim had tried to blow them all up. But when Jim set his mind to something, he saw it through to the end. And Sebastian watched him see this through to the end as well, as he all but fellated that Beretta and blew the back of his own head off.

Sebastian was used to ghost s. Everyone involved with Blackwater would have to be after some of the shit they did over there. Sebastian did what he could only do when confronted with the ghosts of his past and ignored them. And when he found Jim sitting calmly at the kitchen table, Sebastian ignored him as well. He walked right past the image of his former boss and put the kettle on. He continued to ignore Jim as he got the milk out of the fridge and pulled a mug from the cupboard.

"Don't I get one?"

Sebastian was not a jumpy man. In his line of work, jumpy gets people killed. But when Jim spoke, he jumped so hard that he dropped the mug, sending it shattering on the floor. Neither he nor Jim took their eyes away from one another to look at the mess — Sebastian too terrified to look away and Jim just simply apathetic to the mess to bother looking at it.

Some things, it would seem, never change.

"The fuck are you doing here?" asked Sebastian finally. "You topped yo urself. I saw it."

Jim shrugged lightly and stood up to fetch two more mugs down from the cupboard. "I attempted suicide once," he said as he pulled the box of tea from its spot on top of the fridge. "I came pretty close. Killed the guy standing next to me."

"I know," said Sebastian stiffly. "I saw."

Jim levelled a dark gaze on him, holding it for long enough to make Sebastian's skin start to crawl.

"Did you now?" asked Jim, lightly but dark with incredulity. The kettle started to boil, prompting Jim to casually begin to pour the tea, a cup for each of them.

"He jumped," Sebastian insisted. "I saw it myself. I watched Watson cry all over the pavement. Believe me, he's dead."

He did not add the thought that followed immediately after, because pointing out that Jim should have also been dead was going to get him nowhere. Instead, he obediently sipped the tea Jim gave him, ignoring what it no doubt meant about his sanity that he was able to do so at all.

Jim leaned against the counter, casually blowing on his own tea to cool it down.

"I don't," he said. "Because he's in Switzerland. Why Switzerland, I wonder? We don't have anything going on in Switzerland."

"Irene's in Switzerland," Sebastian said automatically.

Jim smiled the insane little predatory smirk Sebastian had seen a thousand times. In the harsh light of the kitchen at one in the morning, it was the most terrifying thing Sebastian had ever seen.

"Very good. You were paying attention," Jim said. "And guess where you'll be tomorrow?"

Sebastian didn't say anything. He just stared at his boss — should-have-been-former-boss — willing him to vanish like a good little ghost. Willing him to stop sipping tea and talking about Switzerland.

"Tomorrow," Jim said, putting his barely-touched tea on the counter. "Don't forget."

He walked out of the small kitchen and o ut of Sebastian's sight. Sebastian didn't wait to see what other gosts of past, present, or future — Christmas or otherwise — were going to pay him a visit before dawn. Instead, he poured his tea down the drain, replaced it with whiskey, and made a hasty path straight for the bedroom.

By the time he woke early the next afternoon, he had almost forgotten about his chat with Jacob Marley, though not enough that the image of Jim in Westwood and heavy chains didn't somewhat amuse him. When he reached the kitchen, all of that amusement faded in an instant. There was still a mug of tea, now stone cold, standing on the counter and the shattered remains of a second splashed across the floor in a flood of shattered porcelain. Sebastian carefully skirted around the edge of the kitchen to check the sitting room for god only knew what. Maybe to find Jim standing out there. Who the hell even knew at this point?

He didn't find Jim. He found a familiar par cel on the coffee table. The sort Jim would always leave for him when he had a job abroad, complete with a heart drawn with a wild flourish on the front of the yellow envelope. Passport, mobile phone, photographs, and a ticket to Switzerland. The photographs did indeed show Holmes, very much alive and well and chatting deceptively casually with Irene.

It would seem as though Sebastian was going to Switzerland.


End file.
